Song Lyric Sunday

Jim Adams is once again hosting Song Lyric Sunday. This week, he has asked us to pick a song that celebrates sandy beaches.

It is a complete coincidence that I mentioned Johnny Paycheck in yesterday’s Great American Songbook Saturday feature. My first song is a song that was featured on that Johnny Paycheck Greatest Hits Volume 2 cassette. There isn’t much information about the song, but I do know that it was written by Bobby Braddock.

The song is the first song that came to mind because there is a line about walking the beach at Waikiki that we always laughed at. The reason is my mom used to make this dish called Waikiki Meatballs. As a kid I hated them. I’m guessing that they were just sweet and sour meatballs. I would probably love them today.

The song is about a guy and a gal who won’t be using the money they’ve been saving for a honeymoon. He goes around the world (via drink) instead.

Mason jars on the dresser filled with dollars and quarters
Saving them for our trip around the world
But now you’ve changed your tune there’ll be no honeymoon
So tonight I’m going there without you girl

I’m going down to Mexico in a glass of tequila
Going down to Puerto Rico in a bottle of rum
Going out to Honolulu in a Mai Tai mug
And I’m coming back home to Georgia in a jug

We’ll never ride that bus to Mexico City that’s a pity
We’ll never sail our ship into old San Juan
You’ll never walk with me on the beach at Waikiki
And we’ll never share that brick suburban home

Today I’m taking that money out of the jar
Tonight I’ll buy my ticket at the corner bar

I’m going down to Mexico in a glass of tequila
Going down to Puerto Rico in a bottle of rum
Going out to Honolulu in a Mai Tai mug
And I’m coming back home to Georgia in a jug

Yes I’m coming back home to Georgia in a jug

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Bobby Braddock

Blake Shelton covered it on his album, The Dreamer

My second choice is one that I played all the time when I worked at Honey Radio in Detroit. It wasn’t a huge hit, but we always played it a bit heavier in the summertime – Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand) by the Shangri-Las.

The song was the first national hit for the girls. They would go on to have Leader of the Pack, and I Can Never Go Home Anymore – all about a love gone wrong.

Songfacts says: George “Shadow” Morton wrote this song. Morton was an aspiring songwriter who was recommended by Ellie Greenwich to her husband Jeff Barry. Barry wanted to find out if Morton could give him a song, so Morton arranged meetings with musicians and the Shangri-Las for a future demo session. However, while driving to Barry’s studio for the session, Morton remembered that he forgot to write a song! So, he pulled over to the side of the road and began writing. Thus, the song was born.

A future rock and roll superstar can be heard playing piano on the song. A young Billy Joel played on the sessions for this and The Shangri-Las’ followup (and biggest) hit “Leader of the Pack.” In a 1987 interview with Q magazine, Joel explained: “I met a guy at an Echoes gig – was about 15 and he asked me if I wanted to play piano on a recording. So I go down to this little studio in a guy’s basement in Levittown, Dynamic Studios, and they’ve got this sheet music down there. There’s two songs, one’s called ‘Leader Of The Pack’ and the other is called ‘Remember (Walking In The Sand)’ and this is pretty easy stuff to play and then Shadow comes in. He’s a pretty strange guy, Shadow. He’s wearing this big cape and dark glasses and he played the producer role to the hilt. I think he had a thing about Phil Spector. He wanted to be the Phil Spector of the East Coast. And he talked in these wild, dramatic, theatrical terms – he wanted more ‘thunder’ and he wanted more ‘purple’ in the record. He’s waving his arms in the air saying ‘give me more PURPLE’. And I’m sitting there kind a nervous – this is my first time ever in a recording studio – and I’m hissing to the other musicians, What does that mean? How do I play “purple”? And the guitar player leans over and say, Oh, just play louder, kid.

So we did these songs in a couple of hours and the singers didn’t actually sing with us, we just did the backing tracks and I was never really sure who it was for and then I heard ‘Remember (Walking In The Sand)’ by the Shangri-Las on the radio and I went Wait a minute, that’s me, and the guys in the band said, Oh, what did you get paid? I didn’t get paid anything. What did I know. I guess Shadow pulled in guys like me so he could save some money.”

Seems like the other day
My baby went away
He went away ‘cross the sea

It’s been two years or so
Since I saw my baby go
And then this letter came for me

It said that we were through
He found somebody new
Oh, let me think, let me think, what can I do?

Oh no, oh no
Oh no-no-no-no-no

walkin’ in the sand
(Remember) walkin’ hand in hand
(Remember) the night was so exciting
(Remember) smile was so inviting

then he touched my cheek
(Remember) with his fingertips
Softly, softly we’d meet with our lips

Whatever happened to
The boy that I once knew?
The boy who said he’d be true

Oh, what will happen to
The life I gave to you?
What will I do with it now?

walkin’ in the sand
(Remember) walkin’ hand in hand
(Remember) the night was so exciting
(Remember) smile was so inviting

then he touched my cheek
(Remember) with his fingertips
(Remember) softly
(Remember)

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: George Francis Morton

Remember Walkin’ In The Sand (Original artist re-recording) lyrics © Trio Music Co Inc, Carbert Music Inc, Carbert Music Inc.

My final selection is another Honey Radio song. We have just walked in the sand, now we will write Love Letters in the Sand.

This song finds Pat Boone heartbroken over an unfaithful girlfriend as he remembers how they used to write each other love letters in the sand. That same year, he landed his first movie role in the comedy Bernardine, which featured the lovelorn tune along with the title hit.

Much to Boone’s surprise, the single was a huge hit, peaking at #1 on the pop chart and becoming the #2 song of 1957. It also peaked at #12 on the R&B chart. “‘Love Letters In the Sand’ was the B-side of ‘Bernardine’ just because we had to put something on the other side,” he explained in a 2016 interview. “We had no idea it would become the biggest-selling record of my career and one of the biggest singles of all time! How little we know!”

Fun Fact: Boone did his own whistling during the instrumental break. (No word on whether he recorded this wearing his white buck shoes!)

It began life as a poem by Nick Kenny. J.Fred Coots (who wrote the melody for “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”) read the poem in the New York Daily Mirror, and obtained Kenny’s permission to set the poem to music. He went through 4 different melodies before settling on the published version known today. The melody bears similarity to the 1881 song The Spanish Cavalier.

Ted Black and His Orchestra first hit the charts with this in 1931. It has been covered by many, including: Pasty Cline, Andy Williams, Bill Haley, Leroy Van Dyke, Sonny James, Marie Osmond, and even Sixpence None the Richer. Most coveres were made “Post-Boone.”

On a day like today
We passed the time away
Writing love letters in the sand

How you laughed when I cried
Each time I saw the tide
Take our love letters from the sand
You made a vow that you

Would ever be true
But somehow that vow
Meant nothing to you
Now my broken heart aches
With every wave that breaks
Over love letters in the sand

Now my broken heart aches
With every wave that breaks
Over love letters in the sand

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: J. Fred Coots / Nick Kenny / Charles F. Chas Kenny

Love Letters In The Sand lyrics © Bourne Co., Bourne Co, Toy Town Tunes Inc, Toy Town Tunes, Inc., John F. Coots Jr. Trust Music

Thanks again to Jim for hosting this feature. I look forward to the other submissions.!